A new wood-fuelled energy system being installed at the Aurivo dairy ingredients plant at Ballaghadereen, Co Roscommon, Ireland will cut carbon emissions in half through a dramatic reduction in usage of heavy fuel oil.

The €5.5m biomass plant, which is currently under construction , will use 30,000 tonnes of woodchip per annum, all sourced from forests in the west and north west of Ireland. It will result in the annual displacement of almost five million litres of heavy fuel oil.

With a capacity of 15 tonnes of biomass, the plant is the first of its kind in the west of Ireland and Aurivo will become the first large scale milk processor in Ireland to switch to biomass as a source of energy.

The new plant, which will be operational in April 2014, will have an output of 15Mw of steam energy. Ultimately, it will be developed into a combined heat and power (CHP) plant and, by 2016, Aurivo plans to be exporting energy into the national electricity grid.

Aurivo chief executive Aaron Forde said the new plant provides a long-term, sustainable energy solution for its dairy ingredients business, which is supplied by 1,000 dairy farmers in the west, north west and midlands.

“As well as cutting carbon emissions, it will also result in energy savings. The move to biomass is an integral part of our commitment to Bord Bia’s ‘Origin Green’ sustainability charter. As a major food exporter, sustainable systems must be at the core of all stages in the production and manufacturing chain,” said Mr Forde.

The plant was designed and manufactured by Irish company, HDS Energy. Based in Kells, Co Meath, HDS has designed, manufactured and installed boiler systems for companies including Intel, Wyeth and Guinness Ireland.

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Developing a local bioenergy market can provide significant opportunities for rural and remote areas, by improving security of energy supply, contributing to a reduction in CO2 emissions and stimulating the local economy by creating jobs and keeping payments for energy within the local community.
A new project, BioPAD (Bioenergy Proliferation and Deployment), which targets the Northern Periphery of Europe, aims to ensure that bioenergy becomes more widely used and that awareness of the opportunities it provides are increased. The project will help the development of bioenergy and improve our understanding of the links between supply and demand by looking at supply chains for a variety of bioenergy fuels and different ways of converting these fuels into sustainable energy. Understanding the supply chains and the ways bioenergy moves from fuel source to energy provision will help the establishment of robust and efficient supply services which can match local demand.
BioPAD is led by the Western Development Commission www.wdc.ie (Ireland) and is funded under the ERDF Interreg IVB Northern Periphery Programme (NPP) http://www.northernperiphery.eu

One Response to Major New Wood Energy Plant for the West of Ireland

One is an one more example of how innovative gasification technology is used to generate electricity from recovered wood waste. Birmingham Bio Power Plant is developed by Carbonarius, a joint venture of O-Gen UK and Una Group formed in 2010 to develop waste timber gasification facilities.